


Maybe Tomorrow

by Deejaymil



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Angst, Explicit Sexual Content, Falling In Love, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Prompt Fill, Slash, Smut, Unrequited Love, Unresolved Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-11
Updated: 2016-02-11
Packaged: 2018-05-19 17:56:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5976043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deejaymil/pseuds/Deejaymil
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The one where Aaron Hotchner wasn't in love with Spencer Reid, until suddenly he was.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Maybe Tomorrow

**Author's Note:**

> Aaron Hotchner had seen a lot of people come and go from the BAU. Good people, bad people, weak and strong. He was pretty sure he’d seen every kind of agent the academy could think to throw at him, whether it was working under him, above him, or alongside him. He’d said as much to Gideon one night when they were having a rare moment of relaxation, sharing a bottle of single malt in Hotch’s office and discussing nothing of importance. It was two years before Boston, and these moments had yet to become rarer still. Hotch didn’t know at the time to treasure it.

Gideon had smiled and chuckled and warned Hotch that if he’d learned anything over the years, it was to always expect to be surprised. Hotch had agreed, but secretly he’d wondered. He should have known that Gideon would take it as a challenge.

Less than a month later, Gideon walked in with a man who Hotch would, if asked, generously describe as ‘scrawny’. Dressed in what looked like a cardigan that was older than he was and with long hair just barely contained by his ears, there wasn’t the slightest suspicion in Hotch’s mind that he could possibly be an agent. Hotch had smiled warily at them both and the man had flushed red and examined his shoes intently.

“Meet Dr. Spencer Reid,” Gideon said with a wide grin. “Our new team member.”

To say Hotch was surprised was an understatement.

To say he was pleased would be a lie.

 

* * *

 

Spencer Reid turned out to be the most physically inept agent to have ever darkened Hotch’s doorway. Thin enough that Hotch worried the weight of his weapon would tip him over, easily intimidated and with a disconcerting tendency to answer any question asked of him while gazing pleadingly at Hotch, as though Hotch was his teacher and he needed confirmation that he’d answered correctly. It drove Hotch mad. After two days with Spencer Reid, just the merest hint of his stupid hair and his ridiculous clothes was enough to set a buzz of irritation chanting the word _statistically_ in the back of Hotch’s mind.

After two weeks of working with the man, he’d gained a twitch under his eye that started going as soon as he heard the sound of barely repressed anxiety. After a month, he actively sought to answer questions before the obscenely young agent could attempt to stammer out his first sentence. Then Gideon had stopped him. He’d thrown Reid out into a room filled with local police force during a case, and before Hotch could step forward and deflect the attention, Gideon had pulled him back. He’d let Reid handle it alone.

And he had.

Hotch had reconsidered his opinion of him. And then he’d continued reconsidering it, because Spencer Reid was nothing if not constantly surprising. At some point over the next two years, he’d stopped noticing Reid’s insecurities because they were far outweighed by his talents. At some point, Reid had kept turning to him and Hotch had just quietly picked up the habit of nodding reassuringly and moving on.

At some point, Hotch had become just as much of a teacher to the kid as Gideon was.

“Did Elle teach you that?” he teased, coming up behind Reid as he glared angrily at the bullet holes in his target. And around his target. And… nowhere near his target. Christ.

Reid huffed. “They’re going to take away my gun.”

Secretly, Hotch thought it would probably be for the best. After all, Reid without a gun was a Reid who couldn’t stumble helplessly into danger. Letting him deliver a profile alone was one thing… Reid in the field still filled him with a cold kind of terror.

But he couldn’t say that.

“A profiler is not required to carry,” is what his mouth said, while his brain quietly chanted, _“And you don’t need one anyway, because you’re safer without it.”_ It wasn’t fair. And he wouldn’t have ever said it about any of the rest of the team because he wasn’t the kind of boss who coddled his subordinates.

But he didn’t say that.

He put a professional hand on Reid’s slim hip, distantly noted the distinct outline of a sharp hipbone under his palm, and corrected his stance. Reid really was _ridiculously_ skinny. Reid glanced at him strangely and let himself be guided and when Hotch stepped back to let him take the shot, he wondered why his pulse was racing. Then he decided it was probably nerves from being so close to Reid with a loaded weapon, even one aimed in the absolute opposite direction from him.

And later that day, when Reid shot a man in the forehead to save Hotch’s life, he realized he’d been wrong. Reid wasn’t safer without a weapon. He’d find his way into the firing line, armed or not.

But maybe, just maybe, Hotch could feel a little safer with Reid watching his back.

 

* * *

 

Aaron Hotchner had failed many people over the years. Sean in their childhood. Haley, now. Their marriage was imploding because he couldn’t separate his work from his home. He couldn’t even stop thinking about work long enough to have a home. And by failing Haley, he was failing Jack. But none of those failures ate at him as much as his failure to save Reid from himself.

They didn’t profile each other. It was their biggest rule, and it was the one most often broken. Even by Hotch. He profiled his team constantly, it was how he kept them safe. And he’d always, always, managed to do so before. Before Boston, he’d never lost a team member.

Then he’d lost Elle because he’d thought she’d be okay.

Then he’d lost Gideon because he’d thought Gideon was untouchable, even when every bit of evidence said otherwise. And somewhere along the line, while those two were slipping away from Hotch like ill winds, he’d lost Reid and he hadn’t even noticed.

Morgan had.

“You gotta talk to him, Hotch,” Morgan had said one day, months ago, and for once, he hadn’t backed down when Hotch scowled at him. Haley was pushing for an uncontested divorce, Strauss was on his back again, and he hadn’t thought it was a priority at the time. Reid had always bounced back before. Now would be no different. He just needed to let the kid stand on his own two feet.

“I’ll see what I can do,” he’d said, and put it on his list of things to do. The list that kept growing and shunting Reid further down. And while Hotch was signing his divorce papers, Reid was seeking oblivion at the end of a needle. Hotch never knew. Or if he did, because he looked back later and realized that he’d known all along, he didn’t allow himself to think about it.

Emily noticed too.

“I know it’s not my place…” she’d started, still tentative with her opinion around him. Gideon was showing every sign of bolting, it was Boston all over again, and Hotch was facing an empty house and all the weight of his job solely on his shoulders.

“You’re right, it’s not,” he’d snapped, and she’d left without saying another word. He’d put it aside.

Gideon promised he was fine, Hotch believed him, and Reid missed another plane.

In the end, even Hotch saw it. And he saw that he’d missed it. So, he went to Gideon.

“You’ll speak to him,” Hotch said, ignoring the shadows in the lines of Gideon’s face and focusing instead on the guilt that had crashed over him earlier that day when he’d seen the way Reid’s hands had shaken against the desk despite his unnatural stillness. When he’d seen the clammy cast to his skin, the pinched tightness around his mouth that indicated a morning spent buckled over the bowl of a toilet. When Reid had looked up to contribute to a case and lost his words, faltered for a moment, forgotten the thread of his thoughts. For the first time, speechless.

Gideon nodded tiredly.

Gideon left.

It was up to Hotch, when he’d already failed Reid so many times. He went to his dingy apartment, grazed his knuckles on the wood of the door without actually making contact, and wondered if this was the beginning of the end. He’d failed so many people in such a short time, how could he possibly think that he could pull any one of them back out of the abyss?

Gideon and Elle were beyond reach. But Reid was still here, still relatively unbroken. Hotch needed to believe that, needed to believe there was some hope, not just for Reid’s sake but for his own as well. Before he could reconsider, the door swung open and hazel eyes regarded him tiredly.

“You might as well come in then,” Reid said listlessly, and stood aside. “I don’t want to have this conversation in the hallway.” His apartment was somehow both exactly how Hotch had imagined it, and yet subtlety different. He’d imagined the stacks of books, the overflowing shelves, the ornate writing desk covered in papers that seemed to be the only piece of furniture besides the couch that wasn’t covered in a thin layer of dust.

He hadn’t imagined the bedding on the couch that spoke of nights spent restlessly seeking sleep on the battered cushions. He hadn’t imagined the dust or the half-completed projects scattered about the already cramped space, speaking loudly of a mind that couldn’t settle on one thing before jumping to another. He hadn’t imagined the neglected kitchenette off to one side or the faint scent of sickness on the air. Nor had he imagined just how broken a man could look while still standing upright, watching him with blank eyes and drawing his coat tight to his body despite the unpleasantly warm weather.

“I’m clean,” Reid said finally, huskily, seeming to give up on Hotch starting this conversation.  Hotch noted several things and added them to his list of failures. The shake to his hands, already noticed, now with more context. The sickly hue of his skin. The long sleeves covering skin that he knew would be marked with a rash of track marks.

“Not for long,” Hotch said simply, and he felt sick. “This is dangerous. Narcotic withdrawal…”

“I know the risks,” Reid said, and failed to meet his eyes. “I’m dealing with it. Alone.”

And Hotch decided that he was done failing. He probably wouldn’t have done this for the rest of his team, but he’d long ago stopped pretending that Reid was just another agent. “Not alone.”

He decided he was also done with being lonely.

 

* * *

 

They didn’t speak of the time they spent getting Reid clean again. Hotch had dealt with it, despite Reid’s mortification when no matter how ill he got, Hotch stayed. He dealt with it, and then he’d left, and it was an unspoken rule that neither of them bring it up again. Sometimes, Hotch would catch Reid watching him and there was something unfathomable in the man’s eyes that Hotch couldn’t even begin to understand. He realized in the coming months that Reid no longer looked to him for reassurance. At some point between Hankel and now, Reid had found his confidence in himself.

Or he’d lost confidence in Hotch.

He tried not to let it bother him.

But there was Morgan who was turning out to be every bit as capable as Gideon had guessed he would be, and Emily who was every bit as capable as Hotch had known from the start she was. Then there was Rossi, who’d been capable long before Hotch could even dream of the word. He hadn’t realized how much he’d relied on Reid’s dependence on him until it was no longer there.

Then there was New Years, and Hotch participated for once, enjoying the atmosphere of belonging that his team carried with them wherever they went, and even allowing Garcia to sloppily plant her lips on his cheeks and proclaim him ‘Best Boss’ every time she stumbled past him.

Morgan was laughing and twirling Emily around in some complex dance to a beat that Hotch wouldn’t even begin to think about dancing to, Rossi was telling a story to a wide-eyed JJ that had Garcia roaring with laughter, and Hotch was watching. Reid was watching too, in his quiet, wallflower manner. At some point, Hotch realized he’d been watching Reid for twice as long as what was appropriate and Reid hadn’t seemed to have noticed.

Reid was drinking, possibly drunk, Hotch couldn’t tell with his usual accuracy because the world had begun to swirl around him and blur pleasantly at the edges, so he missed the tell-tale flush to Reid’s face and the way one hand was carefully splayed against the wall to anchor him there. He made his way over and tried to say something but the words were snatched away by the music before he could even understand them himself.

Reid turned to him and laughed, leaning closer with his ear tilted close to Hotch’s mouth. The hand that wasn’t bracing himself against the wall wrapped around the neck of a beer bottle that seemed so oddly out of place that Hotch stared at it disbelievingly for a moment. Reid tilted his head back slightly, his hair brushing Hotch’s cheek, swallowing the last of the beer in a long pull that had Hotch suddenly vividly imaging those lips elsewhere. He stopped imagining that very quickly because he was nowhere near drunk enough to think that was a good idea.

He bent his mouth very slightly towards that ear to say something, at least he thought he was going to say something, but he overbalanced and found himself leaning heavily on the other man’s shoulder to stop from falling over. Reid was warm under him, snaking an arm up to rest across to stop Hotch from falling forwards. He barely buckled under the sudden weight, settling easily onto his heels and grinning crookedly at his boss’s clumsiness. Hotch thought about straightening, but his head dipped forward almost unconsciously, his chin resting on the curve of the other man’s neck.

Reid leaned into the touch, arching his neck slightly, so slightly, and in any one else it would have been an invitation. The merest suggestion of an invitation had Hotch’s pulse racing as something in his gut turned electric and fierce, sending heat blazing down to his groin, leaving him half-hard and unsettled. He turned his head to blink at Hotch with a bemused expression. “Are you okay?” he asked gently, and the spell was broken despite the proximity of his lips to Hotch’s skin.

Hotch nodded and stood, backing away quickly and hoping there was nothing in his face or bearing that would give him away; blaming the alcohol, blaming his loneliness since Haley had left, blaming how damn good Reid had smelled, like sweat and the faintest hint of cologne, blaming everything but himself. Because he wasn’t attracted to a man almost ten years his junior, and he certainly wasn’t attracted to his _teammate._

Later that night, the clock ticked to midnight and they cheered together. Garcia kissed Morgan, kissed JJ and Rossi, anyone she could get her hands on. JJ kissed him, a feather light brush of lips over the corner of his mouth and a whispered, “Happy New Year,” that was every bit as kind as she was. Rossi bear-hugged him from behind and ignored his grunt of protest.

When he turned to find Reid, half a thought in his mind of drawing the young man into a hug and knowing what it felt like, out of curiosity, to have him pressed against him, he almost missed them. Then he blinked and saw it clearly.

Reid with his arm around Emily, drawing her into a kiss that was a shade too long to be merely friendly and a touch too longing to be one-sided. And when they drew apart neither looked away from the other.

Hotch left with the feeling of having lost something he’d never owned in the first place.

 

* * *

 

Then there was Foyet and Hotch knew how Gideon had felt, dancing the knife’s edge of losing himself to darkness. He took Jack to Jessica’s, went home, and considered the alcohol cabinet. In the same thought, he considered his gun safe.

Salvation came from the most unexpected source.

“You shouldn’t be alone,” Reid said quietly, stepping in through his front door and into Hotch’s personal life like he’d been there all along. Hotch let him because he knew that was Reid paying him back for a weekend years before when Reid had needed him and he hadn’t run away. He didn’t make it easy for Reid to stay. He shouted, he drank, he lashed out. And all throughout that dark night, Reid let it slip off his back like water and merely stood watching him inscrutably. Hotch hated him, hated himself, hated everything that he’d become since he’d failed Haley for the final time.

“Are you done?” he said finally, when Hotch slumped onto the couch and dropped his head into his hands, broken.

“Am I?” Hotch rasped, his voice as shattered as he was. The couch dipped as Reid sat down. Weary with grief and alcohol, Hotch didn’t fight gravity as it drew him towards his friend, their knees settling together as a warm length of heat. Hotch felt nothing but anger most of the time these days, but he felt that contact and it burned him. He still didn’t pull away.

The heat grew, curling along his leg and he shifted closer, their sides touching now. He thought of taking him, claiming him, pinning the slender man to the couch and finding out exactly how he tasted, how he sounded. How he looked when he was lost. It was a surprising, unexpected thought and Hotch didn’t immediately chase it away because, ever since that party, he’d found the thought of Reid in bed, Reid with anyone, darkly fascinating.

He wasn’t daring enough to fantasize about _himself_ with Reid… but Reid and Emily? The only reason he could still look either of them in the eye was because he never imagined their faces.

Reid hummed in his throat, and tilted his head back to examine the ceiling thoughtfully. Hotch traced his gaze along the pale lines of his neck, and found the exact spot that a lover would, if Reid ever deigned to allow them to take him to bed, press their lips against to make him gasp.  He wondered if that lover would be gentle, if Reid would prefer soft pressure and the barest hint of teeth, or if he’d want more force. He had a slight suspicion that Reid would welcome teeth and a bruising grip, that he’d respond to being controlled in bed with much the same enthusiasm that he did in the field. Then he remembered the way that Reid had guided the kiss, pulling Emily into it and holding it with a practised move that spoke of experience. And he reconsidered.

Reid shifted and looked at him, studied him, saw him. Hotch, because he was drunk and angry and just the slightest bit reckless, didn’t look away. “If we have sex, what will it mean to you?” Reid said bluntly and Hotch reeled.

“W…what?” he stammered, for once lost for words.

A warm hand on his knee and Reid leaned forward, into his space, over his space, and Hotch’s back hit the couch cushions as he leaned away out of reflex. Reid had one knee braced on the floor, the other between Hotch’s knees, forcing Hotch’s legs open and he was close, too close. Hotch swallowed and blinked up at him, hyperaware of the minute space separating them as Reid hovered barely, just barely, over him.

Over him.

It occurred to Hotch suddenly that he didn’t believe that Reid was at all submissive in bed, and the thought came with a surge of raw desire that he knew showed on his face, because Reid’s pupils diluted almost immediately after and Hotch could hear his breath quicken.

“If we do this,” Reid said, shaping his words carefully, and Hotch had to focus not to rock his hips up just a tiny bit just to see what Reid would do. “What does it mean for us?”

Hotch chose his words carefully because he wanted this, needed this, and the wrong words would see Reid walking out of here in a heartbeat. He had to know what Reid wanted, what answer he was looking for.

He didn’t think for a moment to answer with the truth.

“Nothing,” he said and his voice was low and thick with the desire his blood burned with. He could feel it sparking through his veins, his skin tingling with the imagined touch he knew was only seconds away, the hand on his knee burning through his pants. “It won’t change anything. It’s just sex.”

Reid nodded and look satisfied, and dropped his mouth to Hotch’s the same time Hotch surged upright to drag him into a starving kiss, demanding him. Their first kiss was rough and Hotch had been right the second time because Reid was anything but gentle, but maybe it was just because Reid was a profiler too and he knew exactly what Hotch needed.

Except he didn’t.

Because Hotch realized that every time a kiss lingered for slightly too long, it was Reid who pulled away. Because if Hotch opened his mouth to say anything, Reid would kiss him until the words were forgotten but never any longer than that. Because when they were naked and curled around each other on the tight confines of Hotch’s couch, Reid examined his body with a hungry kind of focused examination that turned Hotch on just as much as it reminded him that this was absolutely just sex for Reid. It was the needs of the body and his mind was disconnecting, watching from afar, observing. Gathering data.

But with every inch of pale skin revealed as Reid removed his clothes, Hotch found more to be fascinated by until it was almost Reid doing all the work while Hotch slowly ran his hands over the other man’s skin and committed every expanse of it to memory. He knew what it meant but he hoped to a god he held no faith with that Reid didn’t.

He rolled his hips upright, feeling Reid press his own down to meet him, craving friction, finding it. Reid was hard against him, sticky, panting and Hotch pulled him down but didn’t bother finding his mouth. He found instead the spot on his neck that he’d theorized would bring the other man undone and pressed his mouth to it, his teeth, nipping slightly and tracing a whisper of damp air across the reddened skin. He tested his theory, that Reid welcomed the rough side as much as he suspected, and sank his teeth into that spot just hard enough to bruise, to leave a mark.

He’d been right. Reid whined, murmured something, slumped against him so that Hotch could feel their hearts beating as one, sweat sticking their skin together, and twitched helplessly in his grip. Glazed eyes and the red flush to his chest both suggested that Reid _(Spencer, he should be calling him Spencer at this point really because this had nothing to do with work, nothing)_ was no longer a passive participant.

Hotch found the shell of Spencer’s ear, flicked his tongue over it, hands tracing over the slender body in his arms and their hips rocking together. He needed to bring him close, close enough that he wasn’t thinking straight, that the brain that never stopped thinking and theorising stuttered to a pause, just long enough for Hotch to get the upper hand. He was still Spencer, even like this, and Spencer had always responded well to words.

“Let me make you come,” he murmured into that ear, letting the words linger, “please.”

And Christ, there it was. Spencer bucked, virtually bucked into him, a sharp groan escaping his throat that Hotch moved quickly to catch, pressing his lips against that parted mouth and swallowing the noise before it could escape. Suddenly, Hotch had the upper hand but it was all he could do to keep it there because Spencer was practically purring in his arms, nuzzling against him with a focused kind of need that suggested that maybe Spencer knew what loneliness was too. This time they didn’t break the kiss, and Spencer took the chance to slip his tongue into Hotch’s mouth, tasting him, doing everything short of fucking him with it, and it was all entirely _too much._

But he caught himself, contained himself with a shaken breath, feeling his orgasm building and knowing that Spencer’s wasn’t far off either by the erratic way their hips were stuttering together. He wanted to come, needed it, and just the thought of it was enough to set off a chain of _yesyesyesyes_ in his brain that pulsed straight to his dick, but he needed something else. It was the work of a second to curl a leg around Spencer and to pin him there, one hand reaching down to draw their cocks together in his grip, their hips grinding together hard enough to bruise while they both hurtled to a hasty climax.

He had his reasons. Given his way, Reid would have it fast and yeah, Hotch knew that was one way to work through the anger and the pain Haley’s death had left him with, but it tasted too much like using the body offered to him for Hotch to be comfortable with. If Hotch allowed him, he knew this night would end with one of them fucking the other and it would be nothing but sex.

So Hotch didn’t give him a chance and pushed him until one glance at the vacant look on Spencer’s face told him exactly what was on his mind—not much of anything really—and his legs were shaking, fingers rough on the silky skin of their cocks, and it felt so right, so normal, that he couldn’t imagine that this would be the only time this was between them.

Spencer wrapped his arms around Hotch and pulled him close, made a noise almost like a mewl into his shoulder, and there was no sign of the confident man from before in his bearing now, just a desperate, wanton need that Hotch knew he’d only have to slightly recall in the future to have him hard or at least, not soft anymore. Spencer’s hands wouldn’t stop moving, his body rocked, and Hotch moaned just once, feeling Spencer stiffen under him and he knew it was time. He felt him twitch in his palm, knew it was coming, made his move.

Before the other man could react, right as he hurtled over the edge of his orgasm and came in Hotch’s hand, Hotch pressed his lips against that bow-shaped mouth in a bruising kiss and made sure that if this was the only time he had this, the only time he knew this, that Spencer came while kissing him.

And as he followed shortly after, their moans absorbed by each other’s mouths, he choked out Spencer’s name in a voice that spoke of everything that was left unsaid, feeling the other man freeze in shock at the gasped word even as he softened against him. And when they pulled apart, their skin sticking together with sweat and semen and Hotch passed a hand over his belly through the mess and pulled a face, Reid stared at him with something like betrayal in his eyes.

 

* * *

 

They were very good at leaving things unspoken and time got away from Hotch after that night in a way that felt inexorable. Before he could finally quantify what was between them, there was Doyle and secrets and _Emily_ and now Hotch knew that there was never anything between Reid and Emily, it hurt even more to know that her death and resurrection was firmly between Reid and him. He would dream of Reid and wake up hard and wanting, but it was the dreams when Reid would hold him close that left him desperate.

He refused to admit that at some point between the weekend that Reid had come clean and the night when they’d found something unexpected in each other’s bodies, he’d fallen in love with the other man. He had always been very good at lying to himself.

Then Maeve came and Hotch saw what Reid looked like when he loved someone, loved them completely. And he knew that no matter what he wanted to believe, Reid had never looked at him like that.

Maeve then went, and he also got to see what Reid looked like when he lost someone.

And he couldn’t ever be responsible for that pain, for one iota of that pain, so he stepped back and locked away those feelings somewhere in his mind along with memories of Foyet’s knife and Haley’s anger. The dreams stopped but he still woke up hard most mornings, and determinedly thought of nothing when he came.

 

* * *

 

He thought he’d put it all behind him, but then he got the phone call that stopped his world from spinning for a moment, just a single moment, and Rossi was there to see. He hung up the phone, caught his breath, lost it again. Rossi went pale.

“Who?” he murmured, already tasting the loss in the air.

“Reid,” Hotch said, and the world snapped back into clarity again, spun once more, stained red with his colleague’s blood and _somuchblood_ the fear in Morgan’s voice, more fear than Hotch had ever heard before. “He’s been shot in the throat. It’s bad… it’s bad, Dave.”

And he knew that in another world he could keep his cool, keep working, but in this world his entire focus had narrowed to imagining what that would have looked like; imagining the shot slamming into the skin that he knew the taste of and imagining the way he’d look sprawled on the ground instead of under Hotch, losing his life instead of his mind.

Rossi nodded and moved smoothly, speaking softly, using the voice that they use on victims and family members and Hotch knew he’d given himself away, somehow. “Okay. Okay, let’s go. I’m going to drive and we’re going to meet them at the hospital, okay Aaron?”

It wasn’t okay. If Reid died today, died at all, it wouldn’t ever be okay again. If he lost him this time, it wasn’t the thought of a possible relationship or just sex that he was losing. It was everything. It was his laugh and his smile and the keen-eyed brilliance he brought to their profiles. It was his moodiness when he was tired and his sweet tooth and the way he’d toss his head back to flick hair out of his eyes even when his hair was short and swept back.

It was his friendship and his companionship and everything that they loved, gone in a moment, and Hotch couldn’t breathe for the thought of it.

“Have you told him?” Rossi asked quietly in the car on the way and Hotch didn’t know how to answer.

“He knows,” he settled for saying when the silence grew too painful.

Rossi raised an eyebrow. “Are you sure?” he said, his mouth halfway between a smile and a frown. “Because that answer sounds like you’re assuming the kid is capable of believing someone could love him without having it flat out said to him. And that doesn’t sound like the Spencer Reid I know.”

Hotch stared at him. He had been sure. He had been sure for years, letting the time tick by. So much time. Was he sure?

Not anymore.

 

* * *

 

In the end, it seemed fitting that it was him almost dying that made Hotch realize that they really didn’t have anything left to lose. After all, it was keeping him alive all these years that had led to this bond between them, this constant, all-encompassing need to ensure that Reid was safe.

“You didn’t have to bring me home,” Reid said quietly, letting himself into his apartment and heading straight for the couch. He’d been telling everyone that he was fine the whole way home, murmured conciliations, but he was pale and sweaty and the bandage on his neck pulled tight against swollen skin. “I’m okay, Hotch.”

“Are you?” Hotch asked, following him in and putting his bag gently against the wall.

Reid laughed softly. “As okay as you can be after being shot in the neck, I guess.”

Hotch walked over and moved slowly, letting Reid’s eyes track his hand as he lifted it to the bandage, fingers gently skimming the rough surface. He traced the outside, feeling the slippery trace of the hot skin under the pads of his fingers. “You need to get this checked out again ASAP.” He put a snap of command in his voice.

Reid smiled tersely and pulled away very slightly. Hotch caught him, cupping his hand under his chin and tilting his head back to look up into his gaze. He was done not seeing.

“Aaron,” Reid murmured. His voice caught and Hotch felt the pulse stumble under his hand, his breath speeding up slightly. “Is this the time?”

“I’m in love with you,” Hotch said calmly, not allowing himself a chance to second guess himself. “I think I always have been. It’s about time you knew that.”

Reid didn’t answer.

Hotch took pity on him, unable to profile him accurately while his eyes were glazed with barely hidden pain and the painkillers still delayed his reactions. “I know you don’t feel the same, Spencer. It’s okay. I just… want you to know that you are loved. So much. Let me show you that tonight. Just for tonight.”

Reid shook his head, very slightly, hair barely moving from where it stayed lank and damp against his forehead. He really wasn’t well. No matter his answer now, no matter how this night went, Hotch wasn’t leaving him. “Sex would be a very bad—”

“I don’t want sex.”

This time, Reid looked shocked. “But… what do you want then?”

Hotch glared at the couch and the jumble of linen covering it. “To take you to bed. To sleep next to you. To know you’re okay and within arm’s reach. To know, just once, what it’s like to wake up next to you. This has never been about sex for me, Spencer. Not even then. And not now.”

Reid stood and Hotch waited for the crushing blow that was almost ten years coming.

“I love you,” Reid said finally, and Hotch waited for the but. “The same way I love any of my team. Maybe more. Slightly more. There are things I would do for you that I would never do for JJ, or Morgan. Or Rossi.” His mouth quirked slightly and Hotch wondered what that meant, and decided quickly he didn’t want to know. “However, I don’t love you the same way you feel for me.”

Hotch swallowed hard. Pushed the pain back, expected as it was. Corralled it and prepared to tie it back into its battered box with Foyet and Haley and Gideon. Then there was a warm body pressed against him and Reid was tucking his chin on his shoulder, nestling against his chest and closing his eyes, letting himself slump into Hotch’s arms like he’d belonged there all along.

“But I could learn to,” Reid finished, his voice muffled by Hotch’s shirt. “If given time. I don’t have much practise at loving people.”

It was enough. “I’ll teach you,” Hotch told him and led him to the bedroom. He wasn’t worried. After all, they had their whole lives left to work this out.

And Reid had always been a fast learner.

**Author's Note:**

> **Edited August, 2017.**


End file.
